Afterlife: An interactive live-action story combining film, theatre, and video game elements

There is a common ground for storytellers in virtual reality: we apply technologies from different fields and come up with custom equipment and techniques to enhance the production of experiences within a medium that is still finding its language.

In VR, the range of possibilities for narrative content is as extensive as the number of challenges to overcome. Now, there is no need to follow a linear path, and we can insert interactive components for the user to discover the 360-degree immersive environment in new ways. And this is why when creators aim to reach the narrative’s full potential, the production process requires the right amount of experimentation and testing to create high-end VR, and this is especially true for live-action.

From the beginning, Signal Space Lab’s vision and work have been focused on adding to live-action VR layers of interactivity that adapt to the user will and interest in a non-disruptive way. We bring forward experiences where the audience is invited to be fully invested in the story taking place around them. In other words, we design concepts where the audience plays an active role and affects the narrative.

For Afterlife, this process started in 2017 with the idea of bringing a unique perspective to the themes of life and death in the context of a family drama. Along the way, we ended up with combining elements from different specialties in filmmaking, theatre directing, and video game design to bring this story to life.

In this first dev diary video, the developers of Afterlife invite you to take a closer look behind the story and production. What it is to be present in space but not in life, and why it is essential to be living the present moment. These are all part of Afterlife, an intimate journey through tragedy, grief, and acceptance.